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®i)e teutonic 




An Address delivered on the Occasion of the 
Unveiling of a Statue to Rollo of Nor- 
mandy, at Fargo, N. Dakota, 
July 12th, 1912 



by 



Julius E, Olson 

Professor of Scandinavian Languages and Literat ire 
in the University of Wisconsin, 
at 
Madison, Wisconsin. 




I4L 



MM 



'L U&. 



K. C. HOLTER PUBLISHING COMPANY 
Minneapolis, Minn. 




NOTE. 

The observant reader will notice that in my address I avoided 
the discussion of the question as to w^hether Gange-Rolf of Norway- 
was Rollo, the founder of Normandy. I did this in order not to ofifend 
the patriotic sensibilities of the Norwegian promoters of the Fargo 
celebration. As a matter of fact, however, there are the gravest 
doubts as to the identity of Gange-Rolf and Rollo, for which reason I 
deemed it my duty, as the orator of the occasion, to give such an in- 
terpretation of the significance of the monument as to place it on an 
historical pedestal that could not be shaken. On this pedestal the 
statue ought to be of permanent interest not only to all Scandina- 
vians, but to Frenchmen, Britains, and Americans as well. 

I aonreciate the fact that the patriotic ardor of some Norwegians 
prevents the acceptance of my view; but as a student of Scandinavian 
history, I must voice the view that seems to me to accord with his- 
toric truth, whether it favors Norse prestige of not. 

The most learned, searching, and convincing argument on the 
origin of Rollo of Normandy is to be found in a Danish work entitled 
"Normannerne," by Johannes C. H. R. Steenstrup, of the University 
of Copenhagen, published in 1876, in four volumes. 

Professor Steenstrup's investigation is thoroughly scientific and 
exhaustive, and he takes infinite pains to guard himself against the 
charge of a Danish patriotic bias, as he says, "in desiring to rob Nor- 
wegian history of the glory of an exploit which is justly viewed as 
one of the most epoch-inaking events in medieval history, and which 
always has been cited among the memorable achievements of Nor- 
wegians." 

In the large and comprehensive history of Norway, at present 
being issued, Professor Alexander Bugge, of the University of Chris- 
tiania, makes indirect reply to Professor Steenstrup; but Bugge's 
contentions seem to me — 'much as I should be pleased to be con- 
vinced — hopelessly inadequate as a refutation of Steenstrup's argu- 
ments. 

In justice to Professor Bugge, it should be said that he concedes 
that "absolute certainty will doubtless never be attained." Yet in 
concluding his argument he says: "According to my opinion there is 
a preponderance of probability that Rollo in reality is identical with 
■^Y G^inge-RolSk^the sagas, and that Norway has a right to clain> him. 
But that he ever lived in S0ndm0r, we know nothing about." 



:J, 



■Hf 






The Teutonic Spirit 



A distinguished writer has said: "Whoever would com- 
pletely possess the 'today,' must also grasp the 'yesterday' out 
of which it grew." The present shoots deep and strong roots 
into the dark sub-soil of the past, making the connections most 
difficult to follow. It is the duty of the scholar to trace and 
lay bare these root connections, — to illumine the path that hu- 
manity has trod. A knowledge of this path is a needful guide 
to a safe advance into the future of mankind. It is absolutely 
necessary, if we desire, with conscious wisdom and foresight, 
to participate in the combats of the present for the promotion 
of righteousness and justice among men, and for the ennoble- 
ment of human existence. 

We have met here, in the very heart of the great North 
American continent, to note the significance of an epoch and 
an event that belong to another age and clime. Yet such is the 
flux and flexibility of human action and experience that that 
epoch and event have become of significance to all the people of 
this land and nation. 

Rollo, first a roving Viking, later the sedate ruler of a 
French province, achieved the great act of his life a thousand 
years ago. It seems to us mortals a long time ; but on the great 
clock of human experience it marks but a brief hour. 

You who have assembled here today are largely of Scandi- 
navian blood, and hence by virtue of that blood are interested 
in the career of that bold Viking Rollo, first Duke of Nor- 
mandy. And we are, or should be, interested in him, not mere- 
ly for the personal achievements of himself and his succes- 
sors, but more particularly because he was a virile representa- 
tive of the militant Teuton from the Scandinavian North, knock- 
ing at the portals of universal civilization, and seeking — un- 
consciously- — an opportunity to take a hand in the work of the 
great world, — to join the procession of progress and high hu- 
man endeavor. In this sense, it matters not whether Rollo was 
Dane or Norseman — over which there has been much bandy- 
ing of words. The essential and significant fact is that he was 
an unfettered representative of the free North, seeking a field 
of activity for his superfluous physical power and energy, ready 
and eager to fight for a footing in a wider world than his own 
ancestral home, and where he was destined — unconsciously, as 
I have said, — to leave his mark on the page of universal history. 



THE TEUTONIC SPIRIT. 



The best guage of the importance of that mark on foreign 
lands and peoples is our knowledge, ever deepening and widen- 
ing with the years, of the achievements of the Scandinavians 
on their native peninsulas and islands, and in their own north- 
ern colonies, apart from the intimate association of other peo- 
ples. That is a long and interesting story which only during 
the last half century has really been revealed to the world. A 
century ago the history of ancient Scandinavia was practically 
a sealed book. A peep into that book, now open to the world, 
will give us glimpses of life in Scandinavia before the founding 
of Athens and Rome, — glimpses of an age as remote as when 
Homer sang to the Greeks, and when Abraham tended his flocks 
in the land of Canaan. Though the Scandinavian tribes were 
beyond the ken of Hebrew prophet and chronicler, they, too, 
were waging the war of life in the primeval forests of the Scan- 
dinavian North. 

As fruits and grain ripen earlier in a warm clime, and like- 
wise grow in greater multiplicity of species, so the races of the 
Orient and the Mediterranean world came to a much earlier 
maturity than the races of the North of Europe. But though 
the time of maturity was long deferred, the slow growth pro- 
duced an excellient fiber, so that limb and branch of the storm- 
tried racial trunk was well adapted to wrestle with the winds 
of fate and fortune in the centuries to come. 

The ancient Greeks called the tribes in the North ''Hyper- 
boreans," — the dwellers beyond the North wind. And their 
home was, so far as we know, first visited by the Mediterranean 
people in the fourth century before Christ, — by the Greek mer- 
chant Pytheas, at a time when Alexander the Great was march- 
ing his Greek cohorts against the Persians, about the year 330 
B. C. He sailed through the Straits of Gibraltar, circum- 
navigated Britain, and then visited the shores of west central 
Norway, and later the "land of amber," doubtless north Ger- 
many or southern Denmark. Pytheas 's account of this great 
and daring voyage, of which some fragments have been pre- 
served to us through Greek and Roman writers, presents the 
first positive written allusion to the Scandinavian North. Im- 
portant foreign chroniclers do not speak until some centuries 
after Christ, nor do the written records preserved by. the Scan- 
dinavians themselves. 

And yet we are able to tell a great deal of human life and 
activity in the Scandinavian North hundreds of years before the 
Christian era. For all over Scandinavia, from the mountains 
of the North to the southern plains of Sweden and Denmark, 
in field and wood, in bogs and cairns, barrows and burial 
mounds, thousands upon thousands of implements and orna- 
ments of stone and bronze, of gold and iron, and other relics 
of infinite variety have been found, — silent witnesses that have 



THE TEUTONIC SPIRIT. 



enabled scholars to reconstruct, in a measure, that hoary past. 

The result of these studies has been astounding. The iso- 
lated position of the Scandinavian lands,' — their remoteness 
from Mediterranean civilization, made possible a slow, gradual, 
and healthy development, undisturbed by hostile foreign in- 
fluences. As a result, the various epochs of prehis- 
toric man can nowhere be so clearly traced as in Scandinavia, 
especially Denmark and southern Sweden, which, with North 
Germany, was not only the primitive home of the Scandina- 
vians, but also of all other Teutonic tribes. This occasion does 
not present the opportunity to demonstrate this hypothesis. I 
can only declare that it is. now the concensus of opinion among 
great investigators that the primitive home of that great race 
known as the Teutonic — the progenitor of Goths, Franks, Ger- 
mans, Anglo-Saxons, to mention only a few of the tribes, — was 
on the shores of the Baltic and the North sea. We may desig- 
nate it more particularly the Baltic Center, or the Baltic Hive, 
for from it for centuries there was a constant swarming of 
tribes in every direction. Here is the soil on which the an- 
cestors of these nations that I have enumerated developed out 
of most primitive conditions. And it was a splendid soil in 
which to grow. Everything required by people in an early 
stage of civilization was to be found there. This fact was one 
of the great archeological surprises of the nineteenth century. 

Whence the scattered families originally came that wan- 
dered into this northern clime, and why they were mainly a 
blond race, I cannot undertake to discuss. It would lead us 
back too far into a misty past. Suffice it to say : We know the 
primitive Teuton only in northern Europe. But we know, 
furthermore, from the science of language, that this race of 
Teutons was linguistically, and perhaps racially, related to the 
Greeks and Romans, but not to the Hebrew race or other 
Semites. 

There was another important race in northern and central 
Europe that must here be mentioned, namely the Celts. They 
were next neighbors to the Teutons, akin to them as Avere the 
Greeks and Romans, and in remote ages influenced them pro- 
foundly. But in the bird's eye view of the European situatian 
that I feel obliged to give, I shall, for the sake of brevity, speak 
only of the Teutonic race, as the chief representative of the 
races of northern Europe at the time when the hero of this 
occasion, Rollo the Norman, appeared on the stage of Euro- 
pean history. 

As I have already indicated, the races of northern Europe 
were not known to Greece and Rome until Pytheas visited them 
in the 4th century before Christ. Only fragments of his ac- 
count, however, have come down to us. No German in heathen 
times, so far as we know, ever undertook to give an account of 



THE TEUTONIC SPIRIT. 



his people. This task fell first to the hands of two Romans: 
Julius Ctesar, during the middle of the century before Christ, 
and Tacitus, toward the end of the first century after Christ. 

About this time, began the clash between Teutonic tribes 
and the old Roman Empire, which eventually ended with its 
fall, since which time the Teutons have played the leading role 
in the history of the world. If this be true, it can readily be 
inferred that these Teutons must, from the beginning, have 
been endowed with most excellent physical and intellectual 
qualities, in order to have been able to maintain their suprem- 
acy so long. American civilization is based on English civili- 
zation, and English civilization, like French and German, is 
fundamentally Teutonic. 

But we must not claim too much. The Teutonic civiliza- 
tion of today is deeply, profoundly indebted to the contributions 
of other races. 

In the first place, the Christian religion, the • greatest con- 
tribution of al], came from an alien race. The birth of Christ 
is the most stupendous, momentous, and beneficient event in 
the history of the world, despite the astounding fact that it 
has brought more wars, misery, and persecution than tongue 
«an tell. "Why? Not on account of anything inherent in the 
gospel of Christ, but because that gospel was received by most 
of the Teutonic races from the hand of Rome, which for centu- 
ries, and by virtue of the magic of Christ's name, wielded 
despotic worldly power. It took some centuries before the Teu- 
tons realized the dangers of this power. I shall return to this 
point later. 

I was speaking of the gospel of Christ as a factor of primal 
and supreme importance to modern civilization. It became the 
red thread in Teutonic life as the various tribes, one by one, 
came into contact with it. 

The next great fact in modern civilization is the element 
of Greek culture. Every student knows of the profound im- 
portance of Greek art, literature, philosophy, and science to 
modern life. This may be indicated by the statement that 
without the great Greek thinkers and scholars, the work of 
Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton would have been im- 
possible. This Greek culture was produced by men of great 
genius, — great personalities whose names are familiar to every 
school boy in Christendom. It was these great personalities 
that led Greece, and thus eventually Europe and her great 
colonies, into the real daylight of human life. Greek democ- 
racy, however, was a delusion. 

The next great fact in our civilization is the political and 
social influence of Rome. I do not here refer to the Christian 
influences; they came from another race, though Rome became 
the mightiest propogator of them. Rome was strong in what 



THE TEUTONIC SPIRIT. 



Greece lacked. She had no great artists, poets, and philoso- 
phers ; but she had great statesmen and warriors. She devel- 
oped and gave to the world a comprehensive and adequate idea 
of law and the state. The state was evolved from the family. 
This was a noble conception, unknown to the Greeks. The ma- 
chinery of modern governmental administration is today large- 
ly Roman. 

And now the question arises : Why do we call our present 
civilization Teutonic, when such fundamental qualities as I 
have indicated came from Judea, Greece, and Rome? What 
contribution have the Teutons made to their own institutions 
and civilization'? 

It became the mission of the Teutons to liberate the con- 
science of men, and incidentally to rescue agonizing humanity 
from the clutches of ecclesiastical despotism. A noble mis- 
sion, indeed, and one that demanded towering gift and endow- 
ment, — physical, intellectual, and spiritual. And this endow- 
ment the Teutons had, for in the course of centuries they 
proved themselves to be the very greatest power in the history 
of mankind. 

How little did Caesar and Tacitus comprehend the real Teu- 
tons whom they both met and tried to describe ! How little 
did they suspect the mighty qualities that lay dormant in the 
blood of those rude warriors, — their mighty capacity for cul- 
ture and civili^.ation, their deep and profound possibilities for 
religious fervor and sincere piety ! 

Indeed, we ourselves, are just beginning to comprehend our 
own origins, our own endowments, our own achievements. — 
our own selves. It is high time, forsooth, that we come to this 
understanding ; for momentous questions of our Teutonic civi- 
lization are crying for solution, and we need the light of our 
own historic experience to guide us aright. That historic ex- 
perience is vast, far-reaching, and profound, — significant even 
to you Scandinavians, as Scandinavians, on the prairies of the 
great Northwest. 

To answer, somewhat more in detail, the question that I my- 
self have raised as to the contribution of the Teutons to their 
own institutions and culture, I do not presume to reply on the 
basis of my own limited studies in the enormous field of Teu- 
tonic antiquities, history, and literature. I rely mainly on the 
investigations of the world's greatest scholars in the various 
fields of European history. 

In the first place, then, northern Europe is the home of the 
Teuton. As a physical product, he is sprung from the soil, so 
to speak. Northern and central Europe was his by right of 
primitive possession. It was his playground and battlefield, 
that he had a right to control. 

When Tacitus visited Germania in the first century after 



THE TEUTONIC SPIRIT. 



Christ, he saw many tribes. But his keen eye saw that all were 
of the same racial stock. He said : ' ' The physical character- 
istics of these men are the same, and I am convinced that the 
various tribes of Germania, unpolluted by marriages with alien 
peoples, have from time immemorial been a special, unmixed 
people, resembling itself alone." 

This sentence constitutes one of the many proofs that these 
people, linguistically akin to the Greeks and Romans, had lived 
apart from them long enough to create a distinct race type, — 
one of the finest physical types of the world. It is one of the 
great European races, still strong and active, leading in the 
work of modern civilization. Its vital energy and power of 
physical expansion, has been startlingly tremendous. For cen- 
tury after century, tribe after tribe swarmed over all Europe, 
lending to every nation with which they came into contact, 
northern blood and northern spirit. They have colonized 
Am.erica, Australia, South Africa, and many islands of the seas, 
and ruled vast territories in Asia. They have been driven for- 
ward by an irresistible impulse that brooks no opposition, 
counts no obstacle. The two poles mark the compass of their 
conquest. Peary and Amundsen, one an American, the other 
a Norseman, are the advance guard today, — with no more poles 
to conquer. 

Such, then, are their physical characteristics. 

Their intellectual and spiritual endowment was found to 
be even more astounding, when in the course of time, especially 
in the 13th and 16th centuries, the European situation gave 
them an opportunity to prove their mettle. 

And now [ am prepared to say : There is such a thing as 
the Teutonic spirit. It is a physical, an intellectual, and a mo- 
ral quality. Aristotle says: "Some men are by nature free; 
others, slaves." Now it is evident that this means that some 
men have the capacity for freedom. That is exactly what all 
of the Teutonic tribes had : capacity for freedom. 

Capacity for freedom, in a noble sense, presupposes physi- 
cal, intellectual, and spiritual power. Freedom in this sense 
does not mean license. It means free action under a sense of 
responsibility to some governing power. In a worldly sense, 
this is the State. And here it is to be noted that the states 
founded by the Teutons have proved themselves to be the most 
enduring and powerful in the world : France, Germany, Eng- 
land. 

In close connection with this quality of freedom comes the 
Teutonic quality of loyalty. This was to the Teuton "the 
breath of life of everything good and great." But it was 
this same quality that played havoc with the Teuton when 
he came in contact with older civilizations and bestowed his 
loyalty upon things that were clogs and chains to his free- 



THE TEUTONIC SPIRIT. 



dom. For it must be remembered that the Teutons entered 
upon the stage of European history, as did the Vikings later, 
not as barbarians, — for they were free men with all that 
that implies,^ — but in a way as children, and they often fell 
into the hands of the designing representatives of decadent 
institutions. 

The old Roman Empire had opened its civic gates to the 
nations of the world and, in a sense, to the rabble of the 
earth. Its populace came to be a racial chaos. But 
Rome was destined, nevertheless, to remain the seat of 
mighty power, whose toils in the course of time were woven 
so firmly about the Teutonic races that it took the majestic 
strength of Martin Luther to set them free. His name 
typifies the liberating forces of his age. 

But before that great crisis called the Reformation, 
came, the Teuton was gradually becoming conscious of his 
powers and endowments, and was learning to prize them. 
He was getting to know that freedom was the basis of his 
Teutonic nature, and that his proudest word, loyalty, should 
rest on the foundation rock of free self-determination; in 
other words, that his loyalty should be bestowed on things 
worthy of himself and his Teutonic instincts. He was be- 
ginning to understand what Shakespeare, that great Teu- 
tonic giant, in Hamlet, that greatest of Teutonic tragedies, 
so beautifully expressed : 

''To thy own self be true. 
And it must follow, as the night the day. 
Thou canst not then be false to any man." 

That is the salvation of any man, as it is that of any 
nation. 

Goethe once said : "It was the Teutonic races who first 
introduced into the world the idea of personal indepen- 
dence." And this, I may add, has been to the Teuton the 
polar star in his long night of combat to regain his ances- 
tral inheritance. 

Freedom, independence : these are the things that the 
Teutonic spirit has fought for against the insidious power of 
Rome, and these are the gifts it has bequeathed to modern 
civilization. AVith them have come all the splendid achieve- 
ments of the best representatives of the race, — and their 
name is legion. They are the two pinions that have borne 
humanity heavenwards. 

The Teutons have, in certain particulars, been excelled 
by the Greeks and Romans. The Greeks declined because 
they lacked the great governmental instinct; they were sub- 
jugated by Rome. Rome declined because she admitted all 



THE TEUTONIC SPIRIT. 



the world, — ^the slaves and degenerates of all races, — to her 
citizenship. 

The Teutons, take it all in all, have become the equals — 
aye, the superiors — of Greece and Rome, because they pos- 
sess a happy combination of the best qualities of both, with 
special characteristics of their own, in harmonious develop- 
ment. For they have produced poets like Shakespeare and 
Goethe, artists like Rembrandt and Thorwaldsen, musicians 
like Beethoven and Wagner, philosophers like Locke and 
Kant, warriors like WfeUington and Washington, statesmen 
like William the Conqueror and Lincoln, jurists like Black- 
stone and Marshall, reformers like Wyclif and Luther, scien- 
tists like Newton and Darwin, inventors like Watt and Edi- 
son — all as great in their respective fields as any the world 
has known. ^ 

It is to this race, whose attainments have reached the 
very pinnacles of human endeavor, that Rollo, the repre- 
sentative of the Scandinavian North, belongs. And this proud 
occasion offers an opportunity to discuss some of the quali- 
ties contributed by his special branch of the Teutonic race 
to the grand achievements of later centuries. 

I have dwelt on the Teutonic spirit of freedom as a chief 
characteristic. It is not too much to say that this spirit 
was found in its highest potency among the tribes of the 
Scandinavian North; for the mountain fastnesses and the salt 
sea of a bracing northern clime fostered an unquenchable 
love of liberty, of which the poets Wergeland, Ibsen, and 
Bjdrnson are the modern embodiment. And the old Viking 
spirit still survives in the North. Roald Amundsen is its 
most modern manifestation. 

Now the old spirit of freedom, and its concomitant quali- 
ties, arose in the North, not only from race, but from such 
pronounced environment as Scandinavia offers. It became 
a vast breeding-ground of hardy freemen. 

This was a fact of momentous importance ; for there 
came a time in the history of Europe when the spirit of free- 
dom was all but crushed out by the papal power of Rome; 
and the infusion of fresh blood and new spirit from the 
ozone-laden lands of the North that came with the Vikings, 
was sorely needed in the great combats with Rome, espe- 
cially in the 16th centmy, the age of the Reformation. 

Even after the fall of the old Roman Empire, caused by 
Teutonic tribes, Rome as a governmental center, was a magic 
name. Kings, emperors, and bishops conjured with it. It 
dazzled powerful Teutonic princes of central Europe ; and 
the irony of it is that a Teutonic prince, the father of Charles 
the Great, helped to establish the papal throne. Charles 

the Great (Charlemagne) was crowned emperor by the pope. 



THE TEUTONIC SPIRIT. 



This virtually meant submission to Rome, and it sowed the 
seeds of endless wars and strife. That great Teuton, the 
founder of France and Germany, had been dazzled by Rome. 

Charles the G-reat's empire crumbled soon after his 
death (in 814), and in due course of time, the pope declared 
himself lord and master of all crowns, and claimed, more- 
over, that he alone was Christ's representative on earth. 
He could give regal power to earthly princes and make them 
kings by the grace of God. They, in turn, claimed rightful 
OAvnership of all land, and unlimited authority over all sub- 
jects. In other words: men, — heirs of free Teutonic 
fathers,^ — ^had become slaves — had unconsciously sold them- 
selves. 

Here was the fatal turning point. Charles the Great was 
a Teuton in spirit. But he coquetted with Rome, and left a 
heritage that has ridden Europe like a nightmare ever since. 
As the founder of Germany, he should have remained on 
Teutonic soil, fostered Teutonic institutions and literature, 
founded a Teutonic church for his people, and left enfeebled 
Rome to her own devices. But for the loyal support of Teu- 
tonic princes, the papal power would have gone down. 

So we see that the clash of the Teutonic spirit with Rome, 
which has not yet ended, does not turn primarily on matters 
of religious faith, but on questions of temporal power and 
racial instinct. In his association with Rome, Charles failed to 
follow his Teutonic instinct of freedom. He came to believe in 
the unrighteous, unchristian, un-Teutonic practice of conver- 
sion by force. Untrue to 'himself as a Teiiton, he became false 
to all the Teutons of ages to come. The modern civilized world 
has groaned under the consequences of his false step. 

I make no charge against the faith of Catholics, nor do I say 
a word concerning the best methods of saving men's souls and 
of glorifying God, when I declare that religious toleration is 
natural to the Teuton as a man who has deep sentiments of 
freedom, and to whom religion is an inner experience. '' Be- 
hold the kingdom of God is within you!" These profound, 
epoch-making, yet mysterious words of Christ have the greatest 
affinity to Teutonic nature. The disciples did not understand 
them, but Wyclif, Zwingli, and Luther did. 

But Rome neither preached nor practiced religious tolera- 
tion, nor believed in intellectual liberty. Now Rome may be 
right and the Teuton wrong. I am here only presenting the 
fact that a genuine Teuton, in the full and conscious possession 
of his powers of instinct and of reason, simply cannot bend on 
this point. He cannot live in intellectual and spiritual bondage. 

But the immature Teutons of early Europe were as big 
children in the hands of Rome ; and soon we see the Teutonic 
Franks teaching Christianity to the Saxons, their neighbors 



THE TEUTONIC SPIRIT. 



and kinsmen, with sword in hand. And prond Norsemen, like 
Olaf Trygvason and Olaf the Saint, in their misdirected zeal, 
later did the same thing. 

The inherent power and appealing beauty and tenderness 
of the gospel of Christ needed no such stark methods. Only 
time and patience were needed, — such Christian patience and 
fervor as were displayed by the Irish and Anglican mission- 
aries who first brought the gospel to the Gauls and North Ger- 
mans. Those devout men were not the emissaries of any 
worldly power ; they aspired only to be disseminators of Chris- 
tianity and culture, and might have continued for centuries so 
to be, but for the alliance of Charles the Great with Rome. 

The Goths, too, a Teutonic tribe who did not get their 
Christianity, from Rome, were humbly evangelical and toler- 
ant. They had the gospels translated into their own language. 
In childlike simplicity they read the simple but mysterious 
words of Christ, and sent up from their humble homes fervent 
prayers for the coming of His kingdom. 

Rome, on the other hand, declared that the Bible was to be 
read solely in Latin, hence only by the learned, and came, fur- 
thermore, to advocate the dogma of systematic intolerance and 
of tlie punishment by death of heterodoxy. That dogma event- 
ually came to be law, when the Inquisition began its slaughter, 
to the everlasting disgrace of Christian civilization. 

Here, indeed, was a summons for the rescue of agonizing 
humanity ! And in the course of time, particularly during the 
Reformation, when the Teutonic spirit was aroused to its pro- 
foundest depths, the protest and the relief came. 

It was not complete succor and rescue. The distress was 
too deep for hasty healing. Martin Luther did not free the 
church from royal power. He dared not. This wrung his 
great Teutonic heart ; but the exigencies of the situation de- 
manded the decision that he gave. The battle against the di- 
vine right of kings was to be fought out elsewhere, — by the 
colonists on American soil, and by the mad uprising of the 
French people. 

Friends and Fellow Citizens ! It is only with such a back- 
ground as I have here tried to portray, that the significance of 
the Vikings can be adequately presented. 

It were an easy matter to pile up pyramids of facts from 
Viking history. They would be a meaningless burden to your 
mind. Let me rather draw the general outlines, — touch on 
general principles, so as to enlighten the understanding rather 
than burden the memory. 

When the Viking first appears upon the stage of the world's 
history, he is joyous and exuberant, and ambitious for gain and 
glory. He hunts and robs ; he pillages and plunders. Then he 
plows and tills in foreign lands. Later, he builds, not only 



THE TEUTONIC SPIRIT. 



homes and churches, but states and kingdoms. Still later, his 
descendants begin to think, — to have convictions, and to act on 
those convictions. Then he becomes of real and vital impor- 
tance to the world. But much went before this consummation. 

I have spoken of Charles the Great's betrayal of the Teuto- 
nic spirit. It was he that first stirred the Danish Vikings into 
acts of hostility, — aroused the war spirit in them. He at- 
tempted with force to christianize the Saxons, the neighbors of 
the Danes, and met haughty opposition from both. The con- 
quest of the Saxons meant danger to the Danes. This aroused 
their militant chief Godfred. Sailing to the land of the Fri- 
sians with a fleet of two hundred ships, he subjugated them, 
and then began to scheme nothing less than the overthrow of 
Charles himself, and was making preparations to advance on 
Aachen, his capital, when Godfred was mysteriously slain, in 
the year 810, four years before the death of Charles. The fact 
that Frankish chroniclers considered Godfred 's death a special 
act of Providence for the protection of a Christian land, indi- 
cates that Godfred was a foe to be feared. It is vain to 
speculate on what might have happened, had he lived. 

Godfred 's expedition was but a premonitory signal announc- 
ing the oncoming of forces that were to wage desperate war- 
fare in the Christian lands of the North Sea countries for more 
than a century. They gradually came to constitute a mighty 
army, directed by bold, tried, and daring chieftains. They did 
not fight from ships, for there were no foes on the sea. Charles 
the Great had no ships, neither did Alfred the Great, when the 
Vikings first came to disturb his kingdom, though he soon had 
a navy built on a Viking model. 

Now this great army of increasing thousands was armed, 
equipped, and maintained with superior skill and foresight, un- 
til the conquest of Normandy, a century after the death of 
Godfred. This North Sea army was mainly Danish, but there 
were many Norsemen in it, too ; in what proportion it is impos- 
sible to say. 

The army did not confine its activities to the northern 
coasts of Germany and France. In connection with expedi- 
tions from Norway, a great campaign was waged that did not 
end until half of England, large tracts of Ireland, Scotland, 
and the Western Isles, were conquered and settled. Attack 
after attack was' made in quick succession and with wonderful 
military astuteness, and with ever increasing strength and 
numbers, until all Christendom quaked and trembled. Lured 
at first by the wealth and luxury of civilized centers, they 
fought like demons to possess them, spreading terror and de- 
struction wherever they came. Sometimes they met their 
equal, as in Alfred the Great, — that noble Saxon, — but not 
often. Europe was defenceless, and almost helpless. 



THE TEUTONIC SPIRIT. 



From the conquered lands in the British Isles, expeditions 
swept along^the western coast of France and Spain, sometimes 
even entering the Mediterranean, and harrying in North Africa 
and Italy. 

On the other hand, Swedish Vikings went east across the 
Baltic, founded a Russian state, then, in 865, through the inter- 
lacing rivers of Russia, rowed into the Black Sea, and with a 
fleet of over two hundred boats, appeared before Byzantium 
(Constantinople), the eastern capital of the Roman Empire. 
Again, in 907, while RoUo was harrying in France, the Swedes 
appeared before Byzantium with two thousand boats, and were 
only bought off by an enormous ransom. 

This will indicate that the Viking expeditions from the 
three Scandinavian countries actually embraced all Europe, — 
not only in one grand^ encircling tour, but repeatedly. To and 
fro, like a mighty wave, they surged from one end of Europe 
to the other. And before the force of the great Exodus was 
spent — for eventually the Viking age became a great migra- 
tion in search of new homes — they had crossed the stormy 
North Atlantic, without chart or compass, planted a great and 
noble colony in Iceland, which still endures, one in Greenland 
that lasted nearly five centuries, and even attempted the colo- 
nization of the American continent. 

The exploration and colonization of Greenland in the latter 
part of the 10th century by Eric the Red (the father of Leif) 
was a most marvelous achievement, — a feat as daring and dan- 
gerous as Roald Amundsen's run into the south polar region. 
And the attempted colonization of Vinland by Thorfinn Karls- 
evne and his wife Gudrid, so delightfully described in one of 
the old sagas, deserves to be commemorated in stone or bronze 
by Norwegian pioneers in America. For they were the first 
colonists on the American continent. 

And now I ask : What words can describe the physical 
energy, the intellectual force, and the intrepidity of spirit re- 
quisite to execute such vast military compaigns, such enormous 
racial migrations, and such bold pioneer explorations into un- 
known arctic regions? It staggers the mind! 

And then it is not to be forgotten that the clash of the Vik- 
ing Age struck fire and kindled a great literary activity, espe- 
cially among the Norse Vikings who fared farthest afield from 
Rome and settled in the islands of the North Atlantic. It was 
the storm and stress, the surging turbulence and unrest of the 
Viking period, that produced old Norse poetry. The North, so 
to "speak, burst into song, and thus left a heritage of old Norse 
poetry, as vital and expressive of the age that produced it as 
was Homeric literature. Nor was this only a brief outburst. 
The spirit endured for generations, and did not subside until, 
in Iceland, a great prose literature sprang up, in which, in 



THE TEUTONIC SPIRIT. 13 



classic form and cast, the struggles and achievements of the 
race were recorded and passed on to posterity, — something the 
continental Teutons did not achieve. 

If we would note the high-water mark of ancient Teutonic 
poetry and prose, we must seek it in the Eddas and Sagas, — 
literary products that would adorn the annals of any nation's 
history, — that stand worthily by the side of Homeric achieve- 
ment. And I do not speak these words in an effervescence in- 
duced by the spirit of this occasion. They voice the opinion 
of great Teutonic scholars. 

Moreover, it is only through Old Norse literature that we 
get any definite idea of ancient Teutonic religion and worship. 
If we would study Teutonic mythology, we must seek the old 
Norse Eddas, which are real fountains of ancient Teutonic life. 

But this is not the occasion to discuss that subject. I have 
referred to the Eddas and Norse m;>^hology in order to call at- 
tention to the fact that the heathen Vikings had in their blood 
and souls that great quality of artistic creation that distin- 
guished the ancient Greeks, and to indicate that the ancient 
Scandinavians, too, had pondered on the great riddle of exist- 
ence, and had tried to formulate a philosophy of life. AVe find 
it in that profound and beautiful conception of Ygdrasil, the 
Tree of Life, and in that colossal tragedy, Ragnarok, the Doom 
of the Gods. 

Let no man say, then, that the Scandinavians of the Viking 
Age were barbarians, — devoid of civilization. The fact that 
they understood and practiced the art of poetry, — the greatest 
and highest of all arts, — and that they built ships on beautiful 
lines — ^^like the Gokstad and Oseberg ships, so recently un- 
earthed — makes that charge ridiculous. 

Alfred the Great of England did not consider them bar- 
barians. He knew from experience that they were indefatig- 
able warriors. But he defeated them, and then he discovered 
that by means of the Gospel of Christ, — worthily put before 
them, without threat or compulsion, in a true spirit of Teutonic 
tolerance, — he could turn them into peaceable settlers. He 
treated them as his equals, — in war as foes, in peace as Chris- 
tian brothers. What a great, and wise, and noble man Alfred 
was! And a great enough Teuton not to despise his mother 
tongue ! He did not frown on the Viking invaders as '^stingful 
wasps and ravening wolves, ' ' as the monks called them ; for he 
knew, as none other, that in the 5th century his Saxon ances- 
tors came to Britain as the Vikings came in the 9th, in a mighty 
Teutonic swarm, out of the old Teutonic hive. 

How many thousands of Danes and Norsemen settled in the 
British Isles, and eventually dropped into the common mass of 
Englishmen, it is impossible to say. But they came in suffi- 
cient numbers to make England "mistress of the seas" at a 



14 THE TEUTONIC SPIRIT. 

critical moment of her history, when brave seamen were needed 
to save her from death and destruction at the hands of Spanish 
hosts. 

Let a modern American poet speak on the Viking-tide in 
England : 

''As, in a gale, 
A mighty tidal wave, holp by the winds, 
Breaks on some isle, and overwhelms the land, 
All things submerging; so, on Britain's isle. 
The Viking-tide, in waves successive, breaks. 
And overflows the land ; o 'erflows save where, 
In west and north, the mountain fastnesses 
Of Wales and Caledonia lift their towers. 
Angles, Jutes, Saxons, Norsemen, Danes, — 
One people called by many names, one race 
Of ocean-warriors, golden-haired they come. 

"Methinks as in a dream I see them now. 
With tossing prows far out at sea beheld, 
With spears and helmets through the ocean mists 
Flashing, they come; unheralded; with dread 
Watched by those spirits pusillanimous 
Whose purblind eyes see not in these fierce foes 
Heaven's chosen seed, — the saviours of the land. 
Wild giants they, wet with the salt sea-foam. 
But in their lives the primal virtues shine — 
Strength, courage, justice, boundless energy, 
Truth-telling, love of home, contempt of death, 
High .'wisdom, and all else that makes the man — 
And through them is old Europe born again." 

And thus England became a land, where, in the fulness of 
time, the Teutonic Spirit was to clinch and wrestle with the 
giant Rome, — give to her people the King James version of the 
Bible, and finally to come into her full inheritance and bequeath 
•to humanity her fairest flower — Shakespeare ! 

And now it remains to tell that in England's great struggle 
with Rome, out of which she came as the great champion of! po- 
litical and intellectual liberty — of which the American colonies 
were the heirs — Rollo, Duke of Normandy, plays no incon- 
spicuous part ; for William the Norman, the Conqueror of Eng- 
land, the great master-mind of English governmental meth- 
ods, was an heir of Rollo 's blood, title, and domain, 

Professor Rhys, of Oxford University, has recently said: 
"Few of the states of modern Europe have not had their his- 
tory profoundly modified by the Scandinavian conquest of the 
Viking period." 



THE TEUTONIC SPIRIT. 15 

This applies to France, as well as to England, though not 
in so deep and comprehensive a sense. 

The great event of the ninth century is the fall of the em- 
pire raised by Charles the Great ; that of the tenth century is 
the rise of the national kingdoms of Germany, France, and 
Italy. In these two events, the Vikings had their share. After 
the death of Charles, there was the greatest strife and discord 
among his heirs. This ceaseless dissension was a standing in- 
vitation to Viking invasion. These incursions were almost 
innumerable, and at times, of such a character that sober men 
were seriously disquieted by the fear of a complete heathen 
conquest of the empire north of the Alps. People actually ex- 
pected the crack of doom. And the Vikings were repeatedly 
paid fabulous amounts for peace. But in the year 885, the 
brilliant chieftain Godfred was treacherously slain at a confer- 
ance ; moreover, a great invasion into Saxon territory met anni- 
hilation, whereupon a shout of rejoicing went up to heaven 
from. both the continent and England. The ardor of the great 
Viking-tide in Germany was checked. German soil was in- 
vaded no more. One great campaign remained: the siege of 
Paris. 

Preliminarily, a Viking fleet appeared before Rouen, which 
had not seen the common foe for over forty years. Tradition 
says that Rollo fought in this battle against Rouen. 

Then comes the siege of Paris, farther up the Seine. Ac- 
cording to one chronicler, thirty thousand Vikings were gath- 
ered here. It seems impossible. At any rate, men's hearts 
were paralyzed with fear, and the emperor, Charles the Fat, 
was dallying in a foreign land. 

But a doughty defender of the city appeared in Count Odo, 
who, through his bravery, became King of France. And a 
doughty defender was needed, for the seasoned Vikings had 
become past-masters in all the arts of war, and their goal 
seemed nothing less than the conquest of all France. 

The siege of Paris is a tale to chill the blood, and nothing 
came of it except the fact that the magnificent defense here 
maintained, made Paris the seat of government in France. The 
Vikings had been checked, the advance into the interior of 
France stayed, the death knell of. the dynasty of Charles the 
Great was sounded, and the separation came forever between 
France and Germany. 

Thus we see that the great Viking campaigns for the com- 
plete conquest of Germany and of France had failed. As in 
England, their plans had been too gigantic. 

Here is where Rollo shines. He confined his ambition with- 
in narrower limits, thus creating the only permanent northern 
state within Charles the Great's ancient empire. When the 
chroniclers again speak, some years after the siege of Paris, 



i6 THE TEUTONIC SPIRIT. 

Rollo was in possession of Rouen. He continued Ms devasta- 
tion until at last Charles the Simple granted him, by treaty, the 
territories which were already his own, and now known as 
Normandy. This was in the year 912. 

After having gained this firm foothold, the Yiking inva- 
sions ceased, while RoUo was baptized and called Robert, Duke 
of Normandy. He divided the land among his ablest warriors, 
from whose number sprang the Norman nobility, famous in 
history and poetry, song and story, for their bravery and their 
proud and chivalric spirit. 

In spite of the misery and woe that the Vikings caused in 
France, the settlement in Normandy soon produced beneficient 
results. They were progressive in every direction. They be- 
came the best representatives of the new nationality. They 
came as heathens, the dire foes of the church, but their children 
became its staunchest defenders, and the pioneers of the cru- 
sades. The French historian Martin says : 

"The gospel conquered the Scandinavians, and no sooner 
Avere they Christians than they put themselves, with all their 
energy, at the head of Christianity, of young France, and of the 
new civilization. Everywhere they took the initiative. They 
renounced their language as they did their gods, to seize upon 
the French language and make it the vehicle of a new poetry." 

And now it is important to note that the most far-reaching 
event in the liistory of the Normans is the fact that it was Nor- 
mandy that gave to England, and to the world, AVilliam the 
Conqueror. And among the striking things in his career is the 
fact — in line with the theme of my address — that he, like the 
Norwegian King Sverre, dared, more than once, to defy mighty 
Rome (talte Roma midt imod!). 

The English historian Freeman, says of William : ' ' That the 
history of England for the last eight hundred years has been 
what it is, has largely come of the personal character of this 

single man Stranger and Conqueror, his deeds won him 

a right to a place on the roll of English statesmen, and no man 
that came after him has won a right to a higher place.'' 

These are illuminating words, and need no comment. 

And now we are prepared, I trust, to understand the fol- 
lowing ringing and comprehensive words by the great scholar. 
Max Mueller: 

"Though the Old Norse is but a dialect of the same lan- 
guage that the Angles and Saxons brought to Britain, though 
the Norman blood is the same blood that floods and ebbs in 
every German heart, yet there is an accent of defiance in that 
rugged northern speech, and a spring of daring madness in 
that throbbing northern heart, which marks the Northman 
wherever he appears, whether in Iceland or in Sicily, whether 
on the Seine or on the Thames." 



THE TEUTONIC SPIRIT. 17 

Will future historians add to this paragraph a line on you 
Northmen in America ? Is there defiance in j^our rugged North- 
ern speech ? Is there a spring of daring madness in your throb- 
bing northern heart? There should be, and this spirit in you 
should flash and leap, — do battle for political freedom, intel- 
lectual liberty, and Teutonic tolerance ; for these things we 
have not yet completely achieved. Some of the rusted and 
dangling shackles of Rome are still clogs to our freedom. 

But we are making progress. Witness the glorious achieve- 
ment of the great convocation of Norsemen in this city of Fargo 
a month ago ! 

And now, my final and encouraging words are the great 
Teutonic principle : The enlightenment of the few means 
despotism; the enlightenment of the masses means liberty. 

Turn we now to the proud ceremony of the hour. 

Rollo, the Viking the founder of Normandj' , of Normai:) 
prowess and chivalry ; the legislator for his nation ; the father 
of his people ; the proud progenitor of warriors and statesmen, 
— of kings and emperors still enthroned — we desire to do honor 
to the Teutonic spirit embodied in his name. And so we have 
builded him a monument in democratic America. 

Let the curtain rise ! 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (^ 



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